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Shock Corridor – 1963

Mental illness has always been a hot-button issue in the film industry and films about the insane have the potential to be great or to be highly insensitive. Samuel Fuller sought to make a film that would shine a light on the treatment and the state of the mentally ill. Shock Corridor focuses on a reporter who has himself committed to a sanitarium to discover the identity of a murderer inside the asylum. While there he meets a number of interesting characters, including a black man who believes he is a member of the KKK and a brainwashed communist who believes he is a confederate general. The film stereotypes a lot of the issues prevalent in mental institutions at the time, but it’s message is a positive one in the idea that many elements of mental illness are contagious.

Loud and painful, this film never strays from its message about the mentally ill.